I used to edit Innovation Management. My book, "The Elastic Enterprise", co-authored with Nick Vitalari and described as a must read for companies that want to succeed in the new era of business - looks at how stellar companies have gone beyond innovation to a new form of wealth creation. I speak on new innovation paradigms.
I started my writing career in broadcasting and then got involved in the EU's attempt to create an ARPA-type unit, where I managed downstream satellite application pilots, at just the time commercial satellite services entered the market. I also wrote policy, pre the Web, on broadband applications, 3G (before it was invented), and Wired Cities.
I have written for many major outlets like the Wall St Journal, Times, HBR, and GigaOm, as well as producing TV for the BBC, Channel 4 and RTE. I am a research fellow at the Center For Digital Transformation at UC Irvine, where I am also an advisory board member, advisory board member at Crowdsourcing.org and Fellow of the Society for New Communications Research.
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How To Think Differently (And Why!)

Here’s my category preference. I prefer to look at every problem historically. I look for time sequences and categorisation (I studied history and sociology). Recently I’ve been working with an economist who draws me into his fascination with the information implicit in all transactions. And I work with a cog psych specialist who reminds me that personal constructs are also a part of any explanation. Both give me pause to think.

Steven Johnson in his book Where Do Good Ideas Come From suggested that one good place was from a literal cross-fertilisation as time moved disciplines into each other’s space. I’m sure that’s true but I think it also comes from being able to withhold judgment – slowing down the fast instinctive parts. That is another way of saying, being able to break down one’s own category preferences in order to take other people’s perspectives seriously.

# Rule 2. You have to frame your differentness in terms of what people can absorb – or become a radical artist!

# Rule 3. Associative thinking is fine but what makes it work is being able to withhold judgment.

3. Getting into diagnostic mode

A few years ago I had the enormous privilege of working inside the Nokia ecosystem. It was at the time the iPhone launched. Nokia was trying to respond at an executive level. But it was struggling to change anything at the engineering level. Nokia phone engineers were the best in the world and the conversations I heard continually reiterated that.

Here is an example. The iPhone was beautiful but most people had to cover it because one false move and the wonderfully curve body would slip out of your hand. The iPhone was also far too fragile for a mobile device. People typically drop mobile phones and that’s why Nokia’s used to be so well engineered. You could drop them and they would still work. If you bought an iPhone you have to cover it up. Surely this was a slam dunk for Nokia?

But Nokia’s engineering features suddenly became a lot less relevant in affluent markets. Nokia didn’t suddenly become bad at engineering or design but it was nonetheless wasted by the change in market preferences.

Nokia and its engineers were heavily invested in great attributes. They found it very difficult to change their minds as a collective group, just like the gastroenterologists who refused to see bacteria.

This is a fault of diagnostics. People have a framework for how they diagnose problems but it’s the most faulty part of how humans function because it tends to be built around their expertise or their category preferences. Diagnostic frameworks have to be very flexible, open and choice-based rather than prescriptive but most people go into a problematic situation with a prescription in mind – knowing how to fix it – or a category preference or a dependence on expert knowledge.

A good diagnostic framework is comfortable with dissonance, welcomes contrary opinion, and is good with strong egos. You can only get to that if you realize where your biases lie and what damage they are doing. Funnily enough, one way to do that is to role play everyone else’s opinion. Walk a few yards in their shoes and live a different response.

# Rule 4: You need a framework for how you diagnose problems and the levels of tolerance you are prepared to offer.

4. Understanding proof

We’re in the middle of a significant redrawing of the way we see society, business, education, ourselves even. It’s understandable during that time that we’ve lost respect for proof, for real evidence. We manufacture statistics on a startling scale but I don’t think we wait around much for proof.

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